ANSWER HOMES QUESTIONS
I WRITE about the recent criticism of our MP by the Chief Executive of Rossendale Council (‘Council hits back at ‘intimidation’ in empty homes row,’ April 5).
In the light of this long running scandal I presume the MP was seeking answers about this important issue which he wasn’t getting from the Council.
It is interesting that the Council put up the Chief Executive to respond to this, and was this off his own bat or was it done at the instruction of the Council leadership?
We should remember that he has only been in post for less than a year and so has no direct knowledge of this matter and he claims that the MP has damaged the reputation of the Council.
This is absolutely wrong, that reputation has been damaged by the Council’s secrecy on this matter, a practise for which the Council has been regularly and rightly criticised by The Scribbler and others in these pages over many years.
And criticism of this type could be easily answered by COMING CLEAN, what about it Rossendale Council?
As we know this matter has been ongoing for many years and cost Rossendale Ratepayers over £10 million and counting, and there may be another £2 million, or so we are told, more to pay.
When considered against the Council’s annual revenues of around £10 million it is a huge sum when we consider that Council members regularly “winge” about lack of funding from government, think what could have been done with those millions!
When this began there was a police investigation to see if there was any criminality involved but after several years this concluded that there was not.
While this was going on of course the ruling group went into “purdah” saying they could say nothing while the police were investigating, very convenient, but when it finished they still said nothing.
I for one never thought it was about criminality but about COMPETENCE or of course a complete lack of it by councillors who should have been overseeing this very large contract with all its liabilities for us ratepayers.
In the circumstances of the Council’s silence all sorts of theories and rumours will abound and can only be stopped by the truth, so again, what about it Rossendale Council.
One more thing, there was criticism of opposition councillors, we understand for criticising Councillor MacNae for not speaking about this, he being the Labour candidate for this constituency for Parliament in the forthcoming General Election.
Their claim was that as he was not the portfolio holder for housing so it was nothing to do with him, but he was of course a member of the Council cabinet.
So why does he not answer questions about this put to him on his recent Facebook posts promoting him and his party?
Paul Bradburn
Dean Close, Edenfield